The C-17 has been the standard strategic transport for the U.S. Air Force for the last two days. Flying alongside the much smaller C-5 fleet it has flown thousands of missions carrying cargo and passengers in support of Iraq and Afghanistan. Congress and the Air Force decided to end production for the Air Force a few years ago although there are still some open Foreign Military Sales (FMS) cases and hopefully a few more remaining. Even so the C-17 will remain in U.S. service for several more years.

Despite the lack of production orders Boeing (BA) is still able to generate revenue from the platform through maintenance, retrofit and service contracts with the American defense department. They were just awarded a ten year contract for software, hardware and weapon system upgrades worth almost $900 million.

In most cases these days the military rarely buys full data rights to a weapon system due to the prohibitive costs involved. This means that many times the OEM receives the bulk of the support and sustainment contracts. In the end these can easily dwarf the value of the production contract.

MOSCOW, December 29 (RIA Novosti) - Russian aircraft maker MiG delivered in December a batch of four MiG-29K/KUB shipborne fighters to the Indian Navy under a contract concluded in 2010, the company said.
With the delivery, MiG "has fulfilled all its …

MOSCOW, December 28 (RIA Novosti) – The Sukhoi aircraft maker delivered on Friday the first six Su-35S fighter jets to the Russian Air Force, the company said.
The acceptance documents were signed by Defense Ministry officials at the Komsomolsk-on-Amur …